Image: Agrarian distress: Farmers in Sri Lanka’s Polonnaruwa district are trying to make their voices heard. | Photo Credit: Meera Srinivasan Disillusioned farmers in Polonnaruwa district ask why they must vote when their suffering persists amid unkept electoral promises. A week ahead of Sri Lanka’s parliamentary elections R.A. Karunavathi, a farmer in Chandana Pokuna village in Polonnaruwa, […]
Debt Trap
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Sri Lanka: Human rights to dismantle debt trap, says UN expert
Image: Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky. GENEVA/COLOMBO (11 September 2018) – Human rights must be at the centre of measures by Sri Lanka to promote economic growth that would include everyone, says a UN expert. “The Sri Lankan Government should undertake an assessment of the human rights impact of both its economic reform policies and infrastructure projects,” said […]
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UN expert on debt and human rights visits Sri Lanka
GENEVA/COLOMBO (29 August 2018) – The UN Independent Expert on foreign debt and human rights, Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky, will conduct an official visit to Sri Lanka from 3 to 11 September 2018, at the invitation of the Government. “My visit aims at collecting first-hand information and examine questions related to debt and other financial obligations […]
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Sri Lanka’s currency suffers as debt trap deepens
Image: Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport, in southern Sri Lanka, is called “the world’s emptiest airport.” It has four scheduled flights per week. (Photo by Yuji Kuronuma) NEW DELHI — Sri Lanka, which has loaded up on Chinese-funded infrastructure, is sinking deeper into a debt trap as its currency weakens and economic growth decelerates to its slowest […]
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How China trapped Sri Lanka under a mountain of debt
Image: Sri Lankans walk by a Chinese-funded port in Colombo. Photo: Lakruwan Wanniarachchi/AFP via Getty Images. Erica Pandey . Sri Lanka’s economy is struggling under the weight of massive debts owed to China, with the rupee hitting an all-time low on Monday. The big picture: As the small South Asian country’s economy spirals downward, it’s freeing itself from debts […]
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Auditor General drops bombshell; Sri Lanka window dressed fiscal data; hid borrowings
Government institutions have engaged in continuous “window dressing” of financial records to underreport national debt and bypass borrowing limits imposed by debt management regulations, Auditor General Gamini Wijesinghe revealed yesterday. Taking the balance sheet of the Finance Ministry as an example, Wijesinghe said data presentation has been manipulated to avoid presenting the total amount under […]
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Sri Lanka the latest victim of China’s debt-trap diplomacy
Image: Beijing has been given a 99-year lease on Hambantota port as part of a debt-reduction deal, amid talk of creditor imperialism following China’s buy-up of strategic ports in Piraeus, Darwin and Djibouti. This month, Sri Lanka, unable to pay the onerous debt to China it has accumulated, formally handed over its strategically located Hambantota […]
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Vice President Robredo warns of China debt trap, cites Sri Lanka
Image:Vice President Leni Robredo. The administration’s new source of financing for its ambitious infrastructure projects, China, could lead the Philippines into a “debt trap” as it did other countries that had borrowed heavily from the Asian giant, according to Vice President Leni Robredo. Robredo cited the project to build a new Bicol Express, a rail […]
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Sri Lanka Accepts Chinese Demands to Avoid Debt Trap
(Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, chats with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang during a welcome ceremony outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, April 7, 2016.) Saibal Dasgupta /BEIJINGSri Lanka has agreed to resume work on a Chinese-funded $1.4 billion Colombo Port City project that had stalled a year ago.The decision to restart […]
